Our holdings include hundreds of glass and film negatives/transparencies that we've scanned ourselves; in addition, many other photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs) in the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) They are adjusted, restored and reworked by your webmaster in accordance with his aesthetic sensibilities before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here. All of these images (including "derivative works") are protected by copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions and may not be sold, reproduced or otherwise used for commercial purposes without permission.

The wheels on the cars, closest on the left, have wheel hubs that appear not unlike those on a chariot in King Tut's tomb. While roller ball bearings were being produced before 1911, it seems like the car makers couldn't quite figure out how to use them.

I would swear that trams identical to those pictured were still running on St. Clair Avenue in the late 1940s. Other lines (like the Rapid Transit from downtown to Shaker Square) had newer equipment, but the clunkers with rattan seats and open vestibules were my daily transport to kindergarten and first grade. My first wallet (fashioned of genuine imitation leather) contained but one thing: my trolley pass.

Here is an article about the relocated Chandler & Rudd specialty grocery business closing after 145 years, although they later reopened as online-only.

The Euclid Arcade survives (a point of confusion, there were/are several Arcades near each other), but the old Hippodrome was demolished in 1981.

The photo was shot looking east from the southeast corner of Public Square. The box on the westbound trolley wire is a sensor to allow motormen to throw the switch remotely when approaching the square. This was done by either having power on or coasting when the trolley pole passed through the sensor.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.